El Cenre HAS, CaliforniaMay 1952

Unidentified

Summary

On May 13, 1952, an F-9-F pilot taking off from El Centro NAS, California reported seeing a meteor-shaped object diving at a 60-degree angle. The sighting occurred at approximately 3:15 p.m. One object was observed. In a related radar sighting on the same date, radar crew personnel at a classified location near El Centro reported detecting a long radar streak southeast of the base during two antenna sweeps. Some visual sources thought they observed a meteor, but others disagreed. The Air Force concluded the sightings were possibly a meteor.

Reported location

El Cenre HAS, California

Date of incident

May 1952

State / country

CA / US

Page count

1 scanned page

USAF evaluation

unidentified

Microfilm

T1206, Roll 10

Original case file scans

Original case file · scanned by NARAPage 1 of 1

View transcribed text

PROJECT 10073 RECORD CARD

1. DATE
13 May 52

2. LOCATION
El Centro HAS, California

3. DATE-TIME GROUP
Local ___0315 PGM
GMT ____1115

4. TYPE OF OBSERVATION
Ground-Visual [checked]
Ground-Radar
2620N-Visual [checked]
Air-Intercept Radar

5. PHOTOS
Yes

6. SOURCE
F-9-F pilot

7. LENGTH OF OBSERVATION
[blank]

8. NUMBER OF OBJECTS
1

9. COURSE
[blank]

10. BRIEF SUMMARY OF SIGHTING
Meteor shaped. Diving at 60 degree angle.

11. COMMENTS
F9F pilot taking off from El. Centre HAS, California. Saw what he thought to be a meteor.

12. CONCLUSIONS
[checkbox] Was Balloon
[checkbox] Probably Balloon
[checkbox] Possibly Balloon
[checkbox] Was Aircraft
[checkbox] Probably Aircraft
[checkbox] Possibly Aircraft
[checkbox] Was Astronomical
[checkbox] Probably Astronomical
[checkbox] Possibly Astronomical
[X] Other_POSS METEOR
[checkbox] Insufficient Data for Evaluation
[checkbox] Unknown

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Source: National Archives Catalog · NAID 28942083